Indian Traders stayed indoors in Congo

As Residents in one of the Congolese capital’s poorest neighbourhoods responded to the news of killing of Congolese woman in india, Indian traders in Kinshasa stayed indoors and shuttered their shops.

As reports widely circulated on social media in Congo, Indian man killed his wife, Cynthia Vechel, whom he accused of adultery,and cut up her body in an effort to conceal the crime. The next morning, at Ngaba roundabout, in one of Kinshasa’s poorest districts, residents thew stones at several Indian-owned shops and tried to lynch some of their owners, according to several witnesses.

In many African countries, much of Congo’s retail sector, especially for clothes, cosmetics and electrical goods, is dominated by traders of Indian origin.

All stalls run by Indians were closed. Anti-Indian sentiment also surfaced in May, following the murder of a young Congolese teacher by three Indians in New Delhi.

This prompted Congolese authorities to urge citizens not to take the law into their own hands by attacking Indians. “There haven’t been any riots but tension is high,” said Blanchard Mwadi, a worker in an Indian shop, adding the Indian community was mostly staying indoors.